I walked in to the center and headed over to Armstrong and saw Tommy Haas practice, pretty casual practice there. I was then going to watch Dancevic/Uhlirach but it turned out they weren't letting anyone in! Not sure what is the point of having a match in an empty stadium.

So I watched a bit of a few matches to start

Gremelmayr v Kryvonos

Kryvonos is a local kid from Queens and had some supporters out but ran into trouble as Gremelmayr plays a similar game to him but much better and is a lefty as well. Denis was quite solid today from the baseline, covered ground really well, and there was no doubt who was winning this match.

Wessels v Galvani

If you squint and look at some angles Wessels looks a lot like Chris Martin of Coldplay. He was certainly serving at the speed of sound today, even though he was hitting a lot of errors with his backhand. He broke at 4-4 in the second and that was the match, served it out easily. Galvani looked like a homeless man last year with his rumpled plain shirt and scruffy beard and now is cleaned up and has a clothing sponsor, so that is progress, but his returns were lacking today.

Kubot v Troicki

Fun match, Kubot was pretty solid from the baseline and decent at net. Troicki is quite funny, he was dressed wearing a collared button down white shirt with a front pocket, something you'd wear out with a nice pair of pants or something. When he got a call overturned against him late in the match, went up to the umpire and yelled out, "THIS IS A BULLSHIT!" and went on about the calls that werent overturned all match.

Witten v Andujar

This match wasn't very good, neither guy impressed me in the part I saw. Witten hits a hard ball and a decent two handed BH but is a little too stocky, doesnt move that well. Andujar comes in to net more than the average Spaniard.

Vanek v Weiner

Weiner plays mostly serve and volley, to some success, although Vanek came up with some good passing shots and was generally much better from the baseline, neither guy was playing particularly well though.

Llodra v Gulbis

I watched all of this match, actually a very fun well played match. Llodra served and volleyed well, had some great touch at the net and his backhand was better today. Gulbis certianly has talent. He looked like a pretty young kid and could use some more muscle but the talent and shots are definitely there. He already hits a surprisingly big serve and good groundstokes. Really he needs to learn to focus on the big points and match strategy and I think Gulbis has some very good potential. By the way, Mahut was watching this match with Llodra's coach a few seats away from me, pretty scary guy up close

Korolev v Prpic

Was really impressed seeing Korolev up close. His forehand is a big cannon although sometimes that cannon misfires badly, he cut down on the errors today and played very well. He has huge shots and I think lots of talent, sometimes loses focus but I think he will be ranked quite high soon when he puts it all together. Prpic is a speedy consistent player but didn't have the firepower and was forcing his shots too much to keep up.

Lapentti v Healey

Watched a little of this match, Healey was just self destructing. The rains came really suddenly as it was only lightly spitting once or twice during the day. They called the matches, I peeked in the grandstand as I was leaving and saw Nadal and Lopez were still out hitting serves in the rain until they got stopped, Nadal stayed quite a while to sign stuff. I would have liked to have seen the rest of the matches but no way was I waiting around for a couple of hours there.

I'm pretty sure Koubek will win the battle of the weird hairlines. He has been doing great since the second set against Faurel. Zib has had really easy opponents so far, and isn't exactly known for winning matches with anything on the line.